Everything after Michael and Jet and Devon’s incredibly short catching-up session was just downright awkward. Jet was, at best, disinterested when it came to me, and although he didn’t make another move on Michael, he kept looking at him the entire time he was in the room. Devon stayed quiet and stared first at Jet, then at Michael, and back to Jet again. Once—and only once—I caught him looking at me, and I felt like I was an animal at an ag show, that look was so appraising.

I think that Jet must have caught Devon looking, too, since the next thing I knew he had gently nudged Devon’s arms and head from where they had been resting on his lap, and then he’d slammed his foot down—hard—onto Devon’s knee and thigh. They were heavy, steel-toed boots, and if it had been me on the wrong end of that force, I’d have screamed and cried like a little girl.

That’s not what Devon did, though. Not at all. He just let out this gaspy little moan and tossed his head back, eyes half closed. I could see the blood rise to the surface of his cheeks as it set fire to his incredibly pale skin. It got worse after Devon started smiling when Jet didn’t move his foot or ease up on the pressure. Jet had a self-satisfied smirk on his face as he watched Devon’s reaction closely, and I suddenly felt very, very out of place and in the way. I don’t think it could have been much more awkward even if I’d witnessed the two of them half naked and groping each other; it couldn’t have looked more intimate than this did.

I looked over at Robin and was reassured when I saw that he looked just as uncomfortable as I felt—or maybe more so, which would make sense considering that Devon’s his brother, and we were in their parents’ house. He looked away quickly, but he didn’t do anything to make Jet back off, either, which surprised me. If anyone purposely hurt my brother in front of me I’d rip the guy’s face off, no matter how gorgeous and charming he was.

I turned my focus onto Michael, sure that with him, at least, I’d see a look of discomfort equal to mine, but I was wrong. Dead wrong. Michael was leaning forward slightly, his eyes focused attentively on the scene in front of him. On Jet’s boot and Devon’s thigh, more than on anything else, really. And the look on his face… It confused me. Michael wasn’t smiling, which was a little bit of a relief. Instead, he just looked hungry. Longing. Turned on, judging by the shine in his eyes and the quickening of his breath.

His reaction threw me for a loop, to say the least, and I squeezed his hand in an attempt to snap him out of his little daze. The plan backfired when I squeezed a little tighter than I’d intended—hard enough that I’d have cussed if I were Michael—and all Michael did was let out a quiet gasp that sounded almost exactly like Devon’s. Jet looked away from Devon and over to us, quickly focusing on our hands. One of his eyebrows twitched upwards and he smiled.

“Perhaps he isn’t as vanilla as I’d feared,” Jet said. “Delightful.”

Michael blinked, then stood up quickly. “I hate to seem rude, Robin, but I think I need to leave. We can arrange something else later, though; just give us a call.” He tugged on my hand until I stood up stiffly. “It was wonderful to see you both again. Jet, be sure to take good care of Pepper. Pepper, make sure Jet doesn’t work himself too hard, okay?”

He dragged me out the front door and to my car before I could do anything but stammer out a hasty goodbye to the three men we left behind.

“Michael,” I began, quickly unlocking the car doors and getting inside. Michael shook his head and cranked the heater up to full blast.

“I’m sorry, Davis. I didn’t mean to make things awkward. Next time will be better, I promise. And I’m really sorry about that kiss, but Jet was telling the truth: there’s no stopping him once he’s made up his mind.” He was staring at the dashboard, and he didn’t look at me when I replied.

“It’s… I’m not going to say that it’s okay, Michael, because it’s not,” I said, putting my car in reverse and backing out of the driveway. “But it’s not like you asked for it to happen, and you didn’t kiss him back, so it’s not you that I’m upset with. Don’t worry about it, babe.” I almost reached out to squeeze his hand, then thought of what had happened a few minutes before and decided against it. “Now, why don’t you try to explain some of what happened back there? ‘Cause I’m more than a little confused.”

Michael slid down in his seat and closed his eyes. Maybe he was thinking, or maybe he was trying to avoid the situation, but it took him a while to answer. It took the entire ride home, in fact, as he didn’t reply until we were pulling into our driveway.

“They’re old friends,” he said. “I’ve known them since I was almost sixteen.” He was out of the car and in the house before I even had my keys out of the ignition, and I shook my head in frustration. Running away wasn’t going to get him out of talking about this, after all. It was just making things even more awkward.

“Michael, wait!” I called, racing into the house after him. He was already heading upstairs, and I took the steps two at a time to catch up with him. He didn’t slow down, but he didn’t speed up, either. “Seriously, babe. We need to talk,” I said, my voice quiet and more gentle. I did take his hand that time, and tugged him into my room. “Please don’t try to avoid this, because I’m going to find out—even if that means that I have to go back to Robin’s house on my own and talk to his brother by myself.”

Michael kicked his shoes off, shrugged out of his jacket, dropped it onto the floor and slid under the covers of my bed before he replied. “They’re just what I said: old friends from when I was younger. We had sex sometimes, after I turned sixteen: whenever Jezzabelle let me go visit them. We never got serious, though, and I stopped hanging around them a month or two before you saved me and I moved here. And that’s it.” He rolled over and pulled the green flannel sheet over his head, his breathing slowed. I stared and tried to decide where to start.

“Okay,” I began, running a hand through my hair. My brain felt like an egg frying in bacon fat: popping and sizzling nonstop, and generally being distracting. “Just a few questions for you. How many times is ‘sometimes?’ Does ‘we’ mean you and Devon or you and Jet? And why did this Jezzabelle chick have to ‘let’ you visit them? Why not see them on your own?”

“Jezzabelle is not a ‘chick’, she’s a woman, and she deserves to be called such,” was my boyfriend’s immediate reply. “Sometimes means once every month or so. We… means all three of us.”

I could barely hear the last sentence, and my brain wasn’t sure that my ears had gotten it right, anyway. “All three?” I echoed, pulling the sheet down to Michael’s shoulders. Michael nodded.

“At the same time?” I verified, and he nodded again. I had a hard time banishing all the dirty thoughts that appeared in my mind, and it took me a few minutes of deep breathing and pure thoughts to compose myself.

“Okay. All three of you. Okay. But you still didn’t tell me why this Jezzabelle woman had to let you visit them. Did you live with her or something?”

The idea of Michael living with some mystery woman made my stomach turn, and I prayed that the answer was no. I wasn’t usually the jealous, overly protective type without good cause, but this was about to be cause enough.

“Not really,” Michael said. “I spent every weekend with her, twenty-four-seven, but I still lived with my parents and spent my weekdays at school.”

“But what do you mean when you say that she let you visit them, Michael?” I repeated for the third time, frustrated and certainly not ready to let the topic drop. “She sounds like a control-freak of the worst sort,” I added, hoping to prod an answer out of him that way. It worked—and just when I thought that the evening couldn’t get any stranger, it did.

“She’s not a control-freak!” Michael hissed, staring at me angrily. He sat up and shoved the covers off of himself, then looked me square in the eye as he finished his response. “Jezzabelle let me visit because I was hers, and she knew it was good for me to spend time with older gay men that she could trust.”

I’d had a few little arguments with Michael before, but I’d never heard him sound so angry until that moment. And his eyes—usually blue-green—had darkened to a pure blue. Maybe it was just a trick of the light or something, but I swear it happened, and it freaked me out like you wouldn’t believe. I wanted to back off, to agree with Michael: yes, she sounded like a wonderful woman, wise and caring, certainly not a control-freak. I couldn’t let myself do that, though, because there was still something wrong with his phrasing, even if Michael didn’t seem to notice it himself.

“Do you even hear yourself?” I asked incredulously, struggling to keep from raising my voice. “If Jezzabelle was your girlfriend, just say so, but right now you make it sound like she owned you.”

“That’s because she does!” Michael shouted. My eyes widened and I could feel myself going pale. It didn’t look like Michael understood the impact of what he’d just said, of how it affected me, or else I’m sure he wouldn’t have said what he did next. “I need to talk to her before Jet does. I’ll be in my room.”

He swung his feet off the bed, stood, and walked through the door connecting our rooms. I took a step to follow him, but stopped as I heard the click of the door being locked. Convinced that it was just an accident I headed into the hallway, but when I tried that door to his room, it rattled and stayed shut, too. I stared at the doorknob for a few seconds, not really comprehending what its lack of turning meant at first, then shuffled back to my own bedroom.

Something had definitely gone wrong, and I knew that the mysterious Jezzabelle was the one to blame.